Terry's Advice
by Michelle285
Summary: This is a post-ep for Terry Holloway. The plot line is a little different and Terry gives them advice in a way that doesn't involve a note. How does he do it?


_Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters I may mention. I'm just having some fun with them. _

_ A/N: I had an idea similar to this the first time I watched _Terry Holloway _but I never wrote anything. I'm going to try and rectify that and write something now. In this idea, Terry never wrote them a note. And he is dead. If his brother's name wasn't Mike…let's pretend it was! I hope this is okay. Enjoy! _

A clearing throat brought him out of a deep sleep. He blinked a few times to try and chase away the grogginess. When his eyes finally focused on the figure in front of him, he knew he hadn't done such a good job. There was no way his old friend Terry Holloway could be standing in front of him.

"I'm dreaming," Brock decided.

Terry shrugged. "Whatever you say. Why did you go and screw things up with Reba? I let her go because I had hoped you two were meant to be!"

Brock just stared at Terry.

Terry rolled his eyes. He should've known it was going to take more if he wanted Brock to tell him anything. "If I'm a dream, it doesn't really matter what you say to me. Right?"

"I didn't screw things up," Brock claimed.

"You got another woman pregnant!" Terry exclaimed. "While you were still married to your wife!"

"I didn't screw it up on purpose," Brock amended.

Terry scoffed. "How do you screw up a _marriage_ on accident?"

"Reba quit working at the office and Barbara Jean turned everything upside down," Brock explained. "She didn't do anything like Reba had done, like it was supposed to be done. I was having so many problems at the office and all I wanted was for Reba to come back and work for me again, or at least teach Barbara Jean how to work for me. But when I got home, all Reba wanted to do was talk about her problems and what horrors that day had held for her. She never listened to me!"

"Did you listen to her?" Terry wondered.

Brock shifted uncomfortably. "Well, she talked a lot, so sometimes I tuned her out."

"And I'm sure that made her want to listen to your problems," Terry said sarcastically.

Brock ground his teeth in anger at Terry. "She could've pretended. I did!"

Terry nodded. "Because that just would have solved everything."

"I hate you," Brock told Terry.

Brock's announcement didn't even faze Terry. "So, did Barbara Jean listen to your problems? Oh wait, you didn't talk to Barbara Jean about your problems. Or did you do that while you were having sex?"

Brock narrowed his eyes. He didn't like that Terry knew so much about his life and was rude with his knowledge. He was definitely dreaming. "Reba and I were separated!"

"You were supposed to be working things out!" Terry reminded Brock.

"Well we weren't," Brock told Terry. "Nothing was working."

Terry shook his head. Brock had always been just a little dense. "Maybe because you didn't go to the therapy sessions."

"I didn't want to," Brock admitted. "I wasn't going to tell my problems to some stranger. And before you say I'm talking to you, I'm only doing it because you were once my best friend and you're a dream, a figment of my imagination."

"Okay," Terry agreed. "Did you tell Reba why you didn't want to go to the sessions?"

"You seem to know so much about my life," Brock said. "You tell me." The truth was that Brock was embarrassed about how he acted during the whole separation and he wasn't too anxious to relive it.

"You didn't," Terry decided easily enough. "What did you tell her instead? And this one you have to answer."

"I don't have to answer anything," Brock defiantly told Terry.

Terry just crossed his arms, knowing Brock would cave eventually. He could wait quite a while.

Brock sighed. He really did want to get this crazy dream over with and he decided telling Terry would finish the dream faster. "I told her I didn't know we had a session that day, that I forgot, that they were stupid and I wasn't going."

"I see," Terry said.

"You're judging me," Brock said.

Terry shrugged. "I'm just wondering why you had to go and get your dental hygienist pregnant! You and Reba were a better fit than Reba and I were. You two could have worked it out. Did you not want to?"

"Of course I wanted to!" Brock cried. "I just…I wasn't so sure Reba wanted to."

Terry didn't believe that for one second. "Is that what she said?"

"I never asked her," Brock confessed.

Terry tried not to press his fingers to his temples in frustration. "Then why did you assume she didn't want to work it out?"

Brock shook his head. "She never seemed to need me. She made breakfast, took the kids to school, did the housework, picked the kids up from school, took care of the kids, helped them with their homework, controlled Cheyenne and Kyra's fighting, made dinner and when I came home everything was quiet. When she did tell me about her day's horrors, it always followed with how she solved that particular horror. Every problem she would tell me about, she usually had a solution to before she even told me! She did everything. What did she need me for?"

"Reba may not have needed you," Terry agreed. "But I bet she wanted you."

Brock shifted again. He never really thought about it that way before.

"Why haven't you told Reba all this?" Terry questioned. "Why don't you tell Reba all this."

Brock shook his head. "I can't."

Terry sighed exasperatedly and dramatically. "Why not?"

"Because I'm married," Brock told Terry. "Besides, if I told her now, she'd just say I'm thinking about all this because we're down here visiting an old friend. It makes all kinds of old feelings surface."

"You're assuming again," Terry said to Brock. "You have no idea what she will say."

Brock would normally agree with Terry. Reba did much to surprise him. This time though, he was sure. If his wife had kept her mouth shut, Reba might not have thought about things that way. Because Barbara Jean had said almost that exact thing before they left though, Reba would let _no_ old feelings be mentioned on this trip. That was the very reason Brock had tried vainly not to cry when she sang the song they all loved. When that didn't work, he tried hard to hide it. He wasn't even sure he did that so well, but Reba didn't mention the tears. Another reason he knew she wasn't willing to talk about anything.

Terry sighed again, less dramatically this time. "You're such a chicken."

Before Brock could defend himself, Terry had disappeared.

Brock looked around just to make sure Terry hadn't moved to a different part of the room. When he was satisfied and his search had brought up nothing, he tried to analyze what had just happened. He didn't feel like he was asleep but there was no way he could be awake. If he was awake, he was just visited by a ghost. There were no such things as ghosts. This was either a very strange dream or he had drank too much beer tonight. He decided the latter was much more probable.

Regardless of what had just happened, everything he said was true. That was how he was feeling during the separation and he did regret everything he did. Barbara Jean had made him feel needed for a little while, but that didn't mean he needed or wanted her, then or now. He also knew he couldn't tell Reba any of this, because of what Barbara Jean had said about old feelings.

Brock sighed. He had definitely screwed up his marriage with Reba and in doing so, managed to screw up his life as well.

-%

Reba wasn't sleeping too soundly but still, when she heard someone clear their throat, she groaned.

When she opened her eyes, she forgot about scolding Cheyenne, because it wasn't Cheyenne standing at her footboard. It was Terry Holloway!

Reba pinched herself. "I don't normally believe in ghosts, but since you're standing there and I'm obviously awake, I guess I should. You're in the wrong room. Go haunt Brock."

Terry chuckled. "I'm not haunting anybody. What happened between you and Brock?"

Reba sighed. "We separated. He got his hygienist pregnant. We got divorced."

"Why?" Terry simply asked.

"Search me!" Reba exclaimed. "I'll never understand what he sees in Barbara Jean."

"I meant why did you separate," Terry clarified.

Reba shrugged. "I guess it just wasn't meant to be."

"I beg to differ," Terry told her. "I sometimes thought you two were a better fit than we were. What went wrong?"

"He wasn't flexible," Reba finally admitted.

"Meaning?" Terry prompted.

"When he decided to tell me about his problems, he didn't like the solutions I tried to come up with," Reba explained. "He always had the same problems and I understood that things were hard without me working there, but there wasn't enough time in the day for me to teach Barbara Jean. I told him that and then he would just get mad and say I didn't want to help him. I tried to give him other solutions but he didn't want to hear it."

Terry nodded slowly. "So, because he wasn't flexible you got divorced?"

Reba shook her head. "I wanted to work it out, but he didn't."

Terry sighed. He had heard that song before. "How do you know?"

"Well, it wasn't that hard to figure out," Reba told Terry. "He never showed up to the therapy sessions. He always 'forgot.'"

"You say that like you don't believe it," Terry said.

"I don't!" Reba exclaimed.

Terry tried to suppress a smile. "I see. And why not?"

"After the first time he 'forgot' I did everything I could to make sure he didn't forget again," Reba elaborated. "I reminded him the night before, I reminded him before he went to work, I called him an hour before we were supposed to be there, I even asked Barbara Jean to remind him—of course, that was a mistake, but I didn't know that at the time. I did everything except go to his office and drag him to the sessions. And if I thought that would have worked I might've done that too! If he couldn't even make the effort to come to the sessions he must not have cared that much about me."

"I guess that makes sense," Terry agreed.

Reba winced. "I'm sorry. I'm sure this isn't comfortable for you."

"I asked," Terry reminded her. "Besides, I'm dead. It doesn't matter now anyway. I do have another question. Why did it matter so much that he wasn't willing to work it out? You didn't need him anyway."

"I did too need him!" Reba cried. "Whatever gave you the idea I didn't need him!"

Terry didn't nod, but he had figured as much. He didn't think she really _needed _Brock, but he was sure she wanted him. Also, he knew Brock was wrong when he said Reba didn't need him. "Everything seemed so calm when Brock got home from work."

Reba was about to ask Terry how he knew that, but then remembered he was a ghost. She figured ghosts had their own ways of figuring things out. "Calm is just an illusion. An illusion that I worked very hard to project. That way Brock wouldn't have to worry about the kids and me when he had so much to worry about at the office."

Terry smiled. He couldn't help but be baffled at what Reba did for her husband. He wished, yet again, he was lucky enough to get her. "You did a really good job at projecting the calm illusion."

Reba shrugged. "It wasn't too hard. Cheyenne and Kyra fought a lot, but they usually got tired of fighting in a few long minutes. Besides, under it all they loved each other as much as they hated each other. If their fighting got too annoying I could usually make them stop. Kyra liked to torture Jake, even then, but if it was too much, Jake would come to me and I would make Kyra stop. Also, Jake knew that even though Kyra loved to torture him she would give up anything and everything if she thought it would keep him safe. That helped a lot when she started to annoy him. I also became the queen of multi-tasking, which helped me do the housework and make the dinner along with managing the kids."

"You sound like you had it all under control," Terry reiterated. "I can't imagine what you needed Brock for."

"I didn't need Brock to control the kids, do the housework or make the dinner," Reba admitted. "I needed him to kiss me when he got home, tell me I looked good after a hard day—even if I didn't—encourage me in things I did, watch the nightly news with me—even though he didn't want to—and hold me when we were sleeping." Reba wrinkled her nose. "That sounds so weak."

Terry shook his head. "I think that would have been exactly what he wanted to hear."

Reba narrowed her eyes. "Don't rub my face in it. I know I did things wrong. I'm controlling and manipulative and I'm sure my kids could find many other unflattering words to describe me. I must have done a lot wrong, otherwise Brock probably wouldn't have needed to sleep with someone else."

Terry winced at the defeated tone of her voice. "I think you both probably did a lot of things wrong."

Reba looked up at him with shock in her eyes. "What kind of ghost are you?"

Terry couldn't help but laugh. That was the Reba he knew. "The kind that won't sugar coat anything."

Reba smiled. That did sound a lot like Terry.

"If you're so sure you did things wrong and if you wanted Brock for all of those things, why don't you tell him," Terry suggested.

"No way!" Reba exclaimed. "I can't!"

"Give me one good reason," Terry challenged her.

"I can give you two very good reasons," Reba said. "First off, we are in our old town, visiting an old friend. It is a great chance for feelings to come to the surface. A chance that wouldn't have happened otherwise. He'll say they're old feelings bubbling up." Reba copied Barbara Jean's imitation of old feelings bubbling up and out and then gasped.

"What was that?" Terry questioned, trying not to laugh. It was crazy.

Reba took a deep, calming breath, trying not to think about the fact that she just imitated Barbara Jean. "Something I never did and something we'll never speak of again."

Terry dropped the subject. He had come to try to get Reba and Brock back together again and he was so far from that goal. "You said you had two reasons?"

"Brock's married!" Reba reminded Terry. "Like husband and wife, rings on their left hand, 'til death do…them…part. If he wasn't, there might be a chance, a very slight chance, that I'd tell him, but I absolutely can't now."

"Why not?" Terry asked.

"That would make me the other woman," Reba pointed out. "I can't be the other woman to the other woman. That's just weird!"

"Can I ask you a semi-personal question?" Terry wondered. His question was asked quietly.

Reba could tell the mood had changed and she answered in the same quiet voice. "All the questions you have been asking me have been very personal."

Terry smiled. He supposed that was very true. "Do you ever wish…that you had married me and not Brock?"

Reba scratched her neck, mostly to stall, and thought about how to answer. "I've wondered about it, especially after Brock and I were over. I've wondered about it a lot, but I can't say I've ever _wished _it. I love Brock, I loved being married to him and I love our three kids with every fiber of my being. If Brock and I hadn't got married, we wouldn't have had Cheyenne, Kyra and Jake. I can't imagine my life without those three kids and I would never want to. Being married to Brock, those years…they were close to the best, if not the best years of my life."

Terry could tell Reba was lost in the memories and was very serious. He knew they were meant to be together back then. He also knew they should still be together now. He couldn't help but notice Reba said, "I love Brock," and not she loved Brock. Terry sighed. Brock had always been a bit of an idiot. Terry knew he should've put aside his anger and told Brock not to screw it up back when Reba told him she was in love with Brock. But he didn't, and now both his friends were suffering.

Reba suddenly looked at Terry again and smiled. "Of course, if I married you, I'd own a bar now. I guess your wife has rights now though. You think she'd give them up?"

Terry smiled back. "Actually, Mike has rights. But I don't think he'll give them up. My wife doesn't have them because I never got married."

Reba's smile faded. "You never married."

Terry looked into her eyes. "I think I told you this once. You're not the kind of woman a man ever gets over."

Reba winced and looked away. Terry knew this was a lot of emotion for her, especially in one night, so he switched the subject back to his original reason for being here. "That's another good reason to tell Brock how you were feeling during the separation. He can't be over you."

"He's. Married." Reba sighed in exasperation. How many times would she have to say that? "I think that's pretty positive proof he's over me."

"He's married," Terry agreed. "But that doesn't mean he's over you. Those two aren't mutually exclusive. I could've gotten married many times over the years, but I never did, because I wasn't over you. If I had gotten a woman pregnant though, I guess I probably would have had to. Just like Brock had to."

Reba squeezed her eyes shut and fisted her hands to keep them from reaching up to rub some of the tension building up in her temples away. "No."

Terry shook his head. He knew he had to go now and he was no closer to getting his two best friends back together. His mission had been a complete failure. "You're a chicken. Both of you."

Reba's eyes popped open. "Both of us?" Her question was asked to an empty room though. Terry was gone.

Did he mean Brock? Reba wondered. No, there was no way. She drifted back to sleep and, not surprisingly, her dreams were filled with images of Brock. She had no idea that Brock was dreaming too. He though, wasn't dreaming of Barbara Jean, as one would expect. Brock was dreaming of only Reba.

_Okay, as for right now, it's over. I know, I know, you want to kill me. I would want to kill myself too, but I can't help it! If I get inspired, I might try to continue it, but for right now it's complete. I love Barbara Jean and I just can't make them cheat on her. I also don't know how to get her out of the picture without being mean about it. I do have an idea or two, but I'm not sure they'll develop, which is why I'm marking this as complete…for the time being. Please leave me a review if you read and if you did read, thanks so much! _


End file.
